Saturday, 10 July 2010

Nurses

I was rummaging around the BBC News, this afternoon. Initially it was to see Acting Chief Constable Sue Simm, since she's great to see on telly. Not only has she eschewed the whole "I'm going to be glam and gorgeous" thing, she's opted straight for the Ashes to Ashes look, appearing as though she should be sitting next to Gene Hunt. It was female friends in the police who first drew my attention to her "special" hair style and how she seems locked in that error, erm, I mean era.

But hats off to the lass. Or hats on, my friends in blue suggest she sticks a PSU riot helmet on her head, whatever one of those may be. But really, it is great that the woman sits infront of the nation's media, without a care that her appearance isn't sculpted and classically elegant. Very laudable. It's her substance, her actions, that matter.

Whilst on the BBCs site and looking through the video news, the top editor's choice was an article on Donald McGill and his saucy postcards.

He even drew pictures of nurses. I fear that Unison would not approve. But truly I don't care what they think. I'm invariably interested in what a proper RMN or RGN who works with patients has to say. Those who used to be clinicians are like those who used to do PE at school . . . everyone did it, it's not impressive, it doesn't qualify you to talk about it or claim to be an expert in it still. An ex-nurse (or ex-doctor) lacks credibility.

Therefore I'm happy to ignore the view of pompous folk telling me nurses should wear sacks and look beige, so we see their actions and not their looks. Many RMNs are of the Jo Brand school, or male, with an average age in my corner that's within a decade of retirement. The demographics mean that NHS nurses in older adult's mental health really have very little in common with the Benny Hill/Donald McGill images of nurses.

I'm not sure how nurses should be portrayed by main stream media.

Still, on seeing Donald McGill postcards, I could stand to see my nurses in more traditional atire :

I don't think my professional standing is under threat from an innuendo-laden Donald McGill postcard (and I think I'm right not to, since Donald McGill made innuendos about pretty much anything it's possible to make an in-yer-end-o about). I think my professional standing is under threat from the current slash-and-burn approach to public services.

People can imagine me in a saucy nurses minidress with fishnets and heels if they want, but they'd need a stat dose of 10mg haloperidol, 2mg lorazepam immediately afterwards.

Why Lake Cocytus?

Dante's "Inferno" takes us on a journey through to the deepest layer of Hell, passing down through layers of fire. Within this Ninth Layer there is no flame, there is a lake of ice. Imprisoned within this are the those of greatest evil, those of greatest betrayal. Rather a puzzle to me, this one. Is it a terrible place, manifesting evil incarnate? Or is Lake Cocytus a good thing, containing the world's greatest evils?

Good or evil this place, this Lake Cocytus, is my space to entomb the thoughts and musings best interred in ice.

"Because love is not sex or a shared faith, or the 'joint maintenance of a household and the upbringing of children'."
- Sergei Lukyanenko

"Look at that. Look at that. "Accident Blackspot"? These aren't accidents. They're throwing themselves into the road gladly. Throwing themselves into the road to escape all this hideousness."
- Withnail & I

"We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run down."
- Aneurin Bevan